Government regulation requires all aircraft equipment to be certified prior to in-flight use to ensure compatibility of equipment and safety of flight. Equipment is classified as ‘flight critical’ or ‘non-critical’, where the level of certification depends on the criticality of that component to safe flight. Consumer and industrial grade devices, such as laptop computers and other electronics, are often desirable for in-flight use with the aircraft systems for a variety or uses, however, such equipment, normally cannot be inexpensively certified for aircraft use. This is because this unshielded equipment can, for example, induce damaging electromagnetism into the aircraft wiring by acting as an antenna to high intensity radio frequencies (HIRF) or lightning (even when such equipment is not switched on), or can interfere with on-board equipment by emitting radio and/or electromagnetic interference (EMI). Heavy shielding is therefore required, and certification requirements thus reduce the ease with which such equipment may be introduced to the aircraft. U.S. Pat. No. 6,401,013 proposes providing a specially-designed, shielded housing to permit direct connection of a consumer laptop to cockpit systems, however, the solution lacks flexibility and is still expensive, since it requires special shielding and is adapted for use with a specific piece of equipment (a PC) for a specific purpose (connection to cockpit computers). Also, changing equipment requires modification, such as modified security measures suitable for the new device, which reduces interchangeability. Consequently, the problem of permitting relatively easy use of consumer and industrial grade equipment on an aircraft remains to be addressed.